Analysis of Gillingham 0 Walsall 0

As they struggle to shake off their mid-table shackles Walsall face an all too familiar sight.

Already, on the first day of February, the season is in danger of fizzling out, the Saddlers left playing for pride and the bonus of a top 10 finish.

Quite where they go from here is up to them. They sit in limbo with cause to look up and down, especially with the season defining month now upon them.

They are becoming marooned in mid-table and there is a rising and genuine fear this is where they will stay until May.

Eight games this month will decide their fate and, although it is against instinct, it is hard to see where the Saddlers can make up the ground.

Thanks to the enforced break and results immediately before and after Walsall have started to drift and must battle to keep the season alive.

But the Saddlers are riddled with grit and guile, the quality may occasionally go AWOL but these boys know how to fight.

The minimum requirement for the side is effort, impeccable performances are never guaranteed, and their failings are underpinned by the lack of consistency but on Saturday they gained a useful point.

A 0-0 draw against a struggling side may, on paper, be a disappointment but coming against a team with just two home defeats all season it must been seen as a one gained.

And a first clean sheet on the road in League One since September owed much to the performance of their commanding centre-backs.

Manny Smith and Clayton McDonald were imperious. Smith has emerged from the fledging defender of a year ago to become a crucial figure in the heart of the backline.

McDonald has undoubted talent and returned to Walsall to reignite a career which was stalling at Manchester City.

Comparisons will undoubtedly be made with previous stars Anthony Gerrard and Scott Dann, such is the career path, but one fine game does not make a season.

With both in their early 20s there is room for improvement but they have a solid base on which to build.

It was through their intervention the Saddlers claimed a point from a clash which had bigger connotations than most this season.

Rather than a 'must win', it was a 'must not lose' game at Priestfield. What was once a comfortable gap to the bottom had been eroded over time thanks to the Saddlers' inactivity.

Gillingham, seven places but just three points behind at the start of play, could have dragged Walsall back to somewhere they didn't want to be.

And, because of the ever decreasing gap, those of a nervous disposition had the right to become worried about the teams below.

It was a valid concern with the play-offs – despite games in hand – now looking very distant as they start to disappear over a very large hill.

The gap is 14 points, not insurmountable but hardly a hop and a skip away.

And while the drop zone isn't looming League One is a slippery slope and discovering their momentum again is now imperative.

But there are four worse teams than the Saddlers and the squad is more than capable, relegation isn't an issue. They will not go down.

A win against a misfiring Charlton side tomorrow will undoubted set them firmly on the path to redemption after the mid-season blip of six winless games.

And there is no coincidence it has coincided with the loss of Steve Jones, the Saddlers' talisman.

Sidelined with a niggling groin problem the nine-goal winger can only watch in frustration as his team-mates struggle without him.

They cannot replicate his quality, he has proved irreplaceable during his time out and the sooner he returns the sooner the Saddlers will rediscover their form.

But therein lies the problem. In games where Troy Deeney and Darren Byfield are starved of service there is little cutting edge.

At Priestfield it was evident as the pair, for all their effort, were squeezed out. The Saddlers' final ball again coming up short.

Such was the struggle Byfield was dropping deeper and wider to receive the ball, leaving Deeney isolated and lacking support from midfield.

Even then the Saddlers created the first chance of the afternoon when McDonald forced Alan Julian into a fine stop after he met Peter Till's corner.

Byfield and then Mark Bradley couldn't turn the ball in and, as far as chances were concerned, that was all but it for the Saddlers.

The Gills began to force the issue but kept hitting the impenetrable wall formed by the Saddlers' backline.

Simeon Jackson forced the outstanding Smith into the first of many blocks as he threatened to break an already established deadlock early on.

Jack Payne tested Clayton Ince from distance before Jackson broke the visitors' ill conceived offside trap to fire straight at the keeper.

The Gills edged proceedings all afternoon but there the Saddlers comfortably kept them at arm's length,

Mark Barcham put Jackson clear with a glorious throughball but with the striker set to pull the trigger, McDonald arrived with another perfectly timed challenge.

With the momentum the Gills pressed as Walsall struggled to find any attacking impetus. Jamie Vincent denied Barcham a certain goal with a superb late lunge before another McDonald tackle stopped the midfielder in his tracks.

A late flurry from substitute Alex Nicholls gave brief hope but neither team deserved to win this one.

By Nick Mashiter.